Valid Tears

President Obama did not let go completely, but his choking up and his tears today were real. These kind of tears are not only permissible for a man or a woman, they reveal a heightened state of maturity. A man or a woman who did not choke on words evoking real sympathy for the tragic deaths of so many children and their adult protectors, who did not shed real tears under these circumstances would be in the same league as the children’s murderer.

“The opposite of love,” said Oscar Wilde, “is not hate—the opposite of love is indifference.” Those who did not shed a tear upon the news of today’s tragic murders, are, by definition, egocentric, sociopaths. Such damaged souls will be thinking of themselves, not others. This mentality is concerned with doing to, rather than doing for, others--they are the ones who walk past a sick or injured person or animal. That is the crucial distinction that separates real men and women from the asocial human, but inhumane parasites that feed upon them.

In other words, when people fail to mature, for whatever reason, into real men and women, they think only of themselves—we call them “spoiled brats.” But what spoiled them?

Somehow, we have to find a way to socialize people before they become irretrievably spoiled. To do that, a village is required. A village that does not concentrate power over others, but one which does for others, and all citizens of that village, however small or large voluntarily do for others, not to them. That is the message; we’ve had far too much massaging.